


Impetus

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Surfing, on Earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 02:38:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1180929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he finally gets the wave, it’s zero to sixty in point five seconds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impetus

Sometimes he misses the little things.

He’s military, so running out for a beer and a paper when whimsy strikes are things he’s never learned to take for granted. He lives where he’s told, eats what’s available, follows orders until he can’t and has to push free for that one sun-bright, precarious moment when _right_ is more important than anything else, even the resulting tumble. That, John knows how to handle, how to live with and without as needed.

The compensations he receives are pretty damned _cool_ most of the time, too. There aren't many pilots who get to fly spaceships without going through training that burns a hell of a lot more than it keeps, and really—the jumpers are so much cooler than anything NASA has to offer.

But sometimes it’s not enough.

The seats are bucket, curving around his body with a lover’s familiar touch, leather warming against his skin. A low, thrumming growl has his whole body vibrating, winding tighter and tighter as anticipation takes hold. All he needs is that one final signal, the call that everything is ready. Then he can let loose this tension, allow himself to spread to chrome edges and rubber soles. His hands will no longer manipulate but _be_ , his mind a lion’s roar made slick with grease, his legs pounding on blackened pavement. _Go, go, go_ sings in his mind, already awash with too bright light and the puddling future of nothing—

When he finally gets the wave, it’s zero to sixty in point five seconds.

Gone.

It’s here and now that things click into place, puzzle-pieces interconnecting into a seamless whole. He _feels_ this, gravity pushing him back into the leather, hips and torso swaying as he takes the curves too fast, too hard, too right. There are no dampeners, making even a dog-fight as comfortable as lounging on a cruise liner. There is only the air, as harsh as it can be giving, buffeting him this way and that as he flirts with velocities, body surrendered to something he cannot see but cannot live without.

He goes west intentionally, freeing himself of the memory of murky blues and silvered greens to dance with burnt umber and blinding gold. Heat surrounds him no matter how fast he presses the pedal, dry air raisening his body the way it’s shriveled the prickly, stubborn greens, long bleached a withered brown. The salt drying on his skin is his own now, taken instead of given. Molten paths stretch in front of him, each as empty as the last, and here he can lean his face back to a sun only barely dimmed by darkened glasses, and truly let go:

Tension. Worry. Responsibility, to himself, to the lives he carries. The slick sensation of things that never feel truly real, truly _human_.

Bronzed, blinding heat takes all of it and still thirsts for more.

Here there is nothing but sweat and dried up emptiness, gravity collecting around him to keep him pinned, body struggling in the most primitive of ways, to breathe, to see, to live. It hurts in the best of ways, breaking him from a cocoon he doesn’t remember weaving to leave him wet and gasping, slick with newness.

Eventually the world cools around him, life slipping out of its sandy sanctuary. The aimless need to _go, be gone_ recedes, empty roads growing full as he picks _toward_ instead of _away_. The destination is long since planned, already occupied as he drives ever closer, losing the feel of pavement beneath his feet, wind buffeting against metallic skin. When he comes to a final stop, the engine ticking itself cool, damning glare of the gas gauge equally as loud, he is not his car, sleek and black and powerful, top down to expose itself further. He is John, a man made of blood and flesh and time now wasted.

But there are no harsh imprecations as John’s door—the _car’s_ door—is opened and a body slides in next to him. There are no words at all, just a hand in his, eyes turned up to an unfamiliar, familiar night sky. There are questions underneath the callused touch and John’s fingers knot as he gives his answers. Tries, anyway. He doesn’t know how to explain this, the contradictory surges that bind him as much as they try to shove him away.

The hand against his tightens, perpetually surprising strength gripping near to pain: _moron_.

And just like that it’s all right. The time isn’t wasted but well spent, held out before him like a gift to the only one who’s ever known how to translate it back into reality.

“Ready to go back inside?” Rodney asks. Unspoken is the quiet acceptance of either answer, the contentment of a night that isn’t too cold or too dangerous to enjoy.

“Yeah,” John says. “I am.”


End file.
